Students design innovative windmill to harness clean energy

Students at Parkway West CTC and Carlynton and West Allegheny high schools collaborated on the design of a wind turbine installed at the Energy Innovation Center in Pittsburgh. The 40-foot turbine will harness an average 8.6 mph breeze to generate about 3,200 kWh of power each year. The energy will be stored and managed in a mobile unit. According to a press release by the Energy Innovation Center, the wind turbine’s installation marks the completion of a semester-long Sustainable Energy Design Challenge, a STEAM project instituted by the Center through its Design Challenge program, which provides high school students with opportunities to solve real-world problems. After applying and being chosen to present designs for the turbine, the student-consultants met and collaborated with industry experts who guided the process. They determined the best exact location and the overall look of the turbine, applying knowledge in the areas of physics, wind power dynamics and turbulence. The turbine was manufactured by Pittsburgh-based WindStax with funding made possible in part by EPIC Metals of Rankin, PA.